Second Time Unlucky for Alleged Gang

MANHATTAN (CN) – A gang that hijacked a FedEx truck a year ago to try to steal millions of dollars in diamonds – but couldn’t manage to get anything out of the truck – was arrested last week as they tried to do it again, federal prosecutors say. The dozen defendants allegedly were led by a New York diamond-district jeweler.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office: Two armed men flashing police badges kidnapped a FedEx driver and hijacked his truck in Manhattan on the night of Dec. 20, 2007. They handcuffed the driver and held him for 4 hours while they drive the truck to Brooklyn and tried without luck to unload it. They eventually abandoned the truck and let the driver go. “The December 2007 hijacking was planned by diamond district jeweler Brian Greenwald, his associate Roni Amrussi, and Hector Rivera, the head of a violent group of armed robbers who committed other robberies involving FedEx,” prosecutors said. Through court-ordered wiretaps, “surveillance, consensually recorded telephone conversations and in-person meetings between Hector Rivera and a cooperating witness,” officials learned that the group planned to do another heist on Dec. 4 – last Thursday. All 12 were rounded up that night as they gathered “in the area of 11th Avenue in Manhattan, in advance of the planned robbery,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.